CCMA dismisses Nehawu case regarding bonuses

The Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) on Monday, dismissed an application by the National Education Health and Workers’ Union (Nehawu) in relation to the payment of Parliament bonuses in 2015.

Nehawu initially approached the CCMA to request the declaration of Parliament’s review of performance scores of employees in December 2015 as “unfair labour practice”.

“The CCMA declared in the Award that “it is the legislative duty of the Secretary to Parliament to ensure that the resources of [Parliament] are used efficiently. In this regard the fact that [Parliament] as an institution had not achieved its overall targets which [it] found irreconcilable with performance achievements of 91 [percent] of its individual employees,” Parliament said in a statement.

“In its evidence before the CCMA, Parliament stated that the review of the performance scores was a fair measure and done in accordance with its policies as a result of inconsistency between the performance of the institution based on audited results by the auditor general and the individual scores of the employees. The CCMA Award has now confirmed this position.”

CCMA found that Parliament had not “perpetrated an unfair labour practice as alleged”.

In the statement, Parliament said the ruling by CCMA is a thorough vindication of the position of Parliament in its submissions and indicates that Parliament’s management acted in good faith in its engagement with employee issues.

“Parliament hopes that this ruling will close the current chapter of negative engagement and help solidify a commitment to work together in transforming the institution to offer an even more efficient support service to Parliament in discharging its constitutional responsibility.”

Nehawu were not immediately available for comment.

In January, Nehawu said ‎it approached the CCMA in December 2015, to “force Parliament to comply with the agreement”, as they had again not complied with another collective agreement, which is to pay all eligible employees their performance bonuses by December, 15, 2015. Bonuses were subsequently paid on December 18, but the “scores of 571 employees were unilaterally ‎reduced by management of Parliament and more than 200 employees did not receive their performance bonuses”.